The invention involves a chance seedling which occurred as a volunteer plant in the inventor's orchard as will be described below. The new and distinct plum develops attractive, generally ovoid plums of larger than average, uniform size and symmetry. Fruit of the new variety is further characterized as having a harvest date of near that of "Kelsey", but wider and plumper than that of "Kelsey", and having an extensive purple-red blush covering a yellow-green ground skin color in variable pattern and degree. The skin is covered with a light to moderate surface bloom, and uniformly flecked with white conspicuous lenticels. Flesh is yellow (with no anthocyanin coloration) and is uniform in coloration throughout and is non-adherent to the stone which is quite small in comparison to the whole fruit. Having a sweet, rich taste, the fruit of the new variety, which has been named "Akihime" is expected to constitute an important addition to plums available to market after about mid-September.
The new variety of plum tree has been repeatedly asexually reproduced by placing buds of "Akihime", on plum seedlings. Such asexual reproductions have run true to the original discovery in every distinguishing respect by uniformly producing fruit of the character described herein. The genus and species of the new variety is Prunus salicina.